Wowzers! I’d love this. It looks incredibly beautifully put together. And I can imagine that it would have me delving down a warrens-worth of musical rabbit-holes.
British jazz isn’t something I’ve ever taken too much of an interest in, per se, to be brutally honest. I mean, there’s such vast amounts to be explored coming out of the birthplace of jazz, the US of A.
I’ve explored the tiniest amouts of European jazz, and even less British stuff. I have Stan Tracey’s Under Milk Wood, somewhere. And I have a terrific Chris Bowden album called Time Capsule. And more recently there’s stuff by local heroes, like the Portico Quartet, and Resolution 88.
Mind you, all of the latter – save Stan Tracey – would fall outside the chronological remit of this very handsome looking tome, which covers the golden era that spanned 1960-75.
What (else) can I sell, to fund purchasing this, I wonder? Trouble is, I’m not having much luck selling the stuff I’m already trying to flog. Which (so far non-existent) money is to go towards paying basic things, like bills.
When I lived in London I used to love visiting Ray’s Jazz and Mole Jazz. There were other jazzy joints, I think, like Honest Jon’s. But I very rarely fit out that way (West London). And towards the end of my time In’t Smoke, some new ones began appearing, like Mr Bongo, that carried a lot of jazz, but were a bit broader in their catalogues.
Both Ray’s and Mole closed. I didn’t realise this, but Ray’s Jazz is actually still going, as a sub-department, within Foyle’s Bookshop, London. I’m glad to learn that!
I also didn’t know that, like me, Ray was both born in Ealing, and a drummer!
I really must get this book, if humanly possible. And, whether I succeed in that endeavour or not, I gots to start digging into British jazz history.
FOOTNOTE… Oops! I forgot about this!
I talked about not really digging into Brit-Jazz above. And I suddenly remembered that, actually, whilst that’s still broadly speaking very true, there are some things I forgot I’d checked out. Such as the Torrid Zone collection of Ian Carr/Nucleus recordings.
I’ve also started to check out recordings by Neil Ardley. And then there’s the connections between UK prog and Brit-Jazz… and so it goes, on and on. The musical multiverses multiply.